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THE POPULAR SCIENCE MONTHLY.— SUPPLEMENT. 



unceasing current of desire. In man, at last, 

 will obtains the highest stage of its objectivation. 

 It becomes object proper because the self-con- 

 scious subject has been created. 



This, then, is what we discover in looking at 

 ourselves and the surrounding world through the 

 medium of Schopenhauer's philosophy. Will and 

 interminable desire are the essence of our being, 

 and the same desire is at the bottom of the phe- 

 nomena of the world. These phenomena them- 

 selves, although we recognize their essence by 

 analogy, surround us with bewildering horror. 

 Everywhere we see struggle for existence, species 

 devouring species, race contending against race; 1 

 even the brute earth seething and bubbling with 

 internal fire ready to burst forth at any moment. 

 Such is the spectacle of will in contest with itself, 

 and devouring its own children with insatiable 

 hunger. Surely this is not a bright picture, and 

 Schopenhauer has painted it with the sombrest 

 hues of despair. He lays bare the revolting 

 cruelty of Nature, which, at the cost of incon- 

 ceivable individual suffering, creates new types 

 only to abandon them again to the universal 

 doom of destruction. And the same tragedy is 

 repeated in our bosom. Here, also, desire fol- 

 lows desire never fulfilled, or bearing disappoint- 

 ment and ever-new desire in its very fulfillment. 

 Here, also, quietude and contentment are vainly 

 sought for, the very nature of will being unrest 

 and insatiable longing. 



The beauty and grandeur of Schopenhauer's 

 language, rivaling the highest efforts of poetry ; 

 the force and vividness with which he depicts the 

 nothingness and misery of existence; the halo 

 with which he surrounds the sufferings of man as 

 the truest and noblest aspirations of his being — 

 all this has vastly contributed to carry his name 

 far beyond the circle of metaphysical inquirers. 

 Hut is there no escape from this sea of troubles ? 



1 Readers who may be struck with the affinity of 

 Schopenhauer's doctrine to certain theories of modern 

 science (an affinity much closer than would appear from 

 my hurried sketch), I must remind that the German phi- 

 losopher's chief work was written before 1818. But even 

 if this precedence could not be established, Schopenhauer's 

 claim to originality would not be in any way affected. lie 

 stands altogether on a higher level than is attainable to 

 physical science, whose results he uses for his metaphysi- 

 cal purpose in the same measure as those of psychology, 

 history, comparative philology, or any other empiric disci- 

 pline. He reasons where they observe, or, at best, classi- 

 fy. This ought to be particularly remembered in a coun- 

 try where scientific men proper are apt to assume not only 

 the name but also the function of philosophers. Why the 

 skillful handling of the microscope or of the vivisector's 

 knife should entitle a man to speak ex cathedra on meta- 

 physical questions it is not easy to perceive. 



— no compass to guide us to a haven of rest ? 

 Schopenhauer has pointed out such a way ; he 

 names one, and only one, all-healing balm for the 

 wounds of mankind, and the name of his panacea 

 is self-negation. We must retrace our steps for 

 a moment. It has been shown that will in its 

 lower forms is all but void of consciousness. It 

 blindly pursues its struggle for individualization, 

 and all its latent intelligent force (barely sufficient 

 to account for the apparent teleology in Nature) 

 is consumed in this one aim. But the case is dif- 

 ferent in the human organism. Here will at last 

 has become conscious of itself, and its own mis- 

 eries are mirrored in the intellect. By dint of 

 this intellect will is now enabled to paralyze to 

 some degree its own action ; it can intensify this 

 intellectual or contemplative power to such a de- 

 gree as at last to become a calm looker-on at its 

 own deeds. By thus renouncing itself in its high- 

 est stage of conscious development, will may at 

 last find that freedom from suffering, that quies- 

 cent contentment which is forever denied to its 

 affirmative efforts (" Bejahung und Verneinung 

 des Willens zum Leben "). Consistently carried 

 out, this leads to the absolute deadening of indi- 

 vidual desire, to be met with only in certaiu 

 phases of Buddhism and Christianity ; and Scho- 

 penhauer by no means hesitates in adopting the 

 extreme consequences of his doctrine. The high- 

 est stage at once of happiness and sanctity he is 

 prone to acknowledge in the monk of the order 

 of La Trappe, or still more in the Indian devotee 

 who in passive contemplation awaits the dissolu- 

 tion of his embodied will to enter the realm of 

 divine non-existence, Nirwana. 



It is to this part of Schopenhauer's philosophy 

 that I was chiefly referring when speaking of the 

 influence of his time and of his own personal feel- 

 ing on the development of his system. In his 

 dark picture of human suffering he seems pur- 

 posely to blind himself to the intense though 

 transitory enjoyment of success long desired and 

 well earned by arduous labor. A strong man con- 

 quering difficulties may rejoice in his power, and, 

 if his will be guided and subdued by the higher 

 motives of love and self-sacrifice, if in short he be 

 a hero in the true sense of the word, we surely 

 are justified (on Schopenhauer's own grounds) in 

 exalting his virtue above the impassive selfish- 

 ness of a besotted monk or fakir. 



There is one other means, Schopenhauer con- 

 tinues, of temporarily emerging from the toil and 

 struggle of will into the purer calm of contem- 

 plation ; this means is art. The artist and he 

 who genuinely loves art contemplate the thou- 



